160 EXPLOITATION OF PLANTS 
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the very mould of human thought, and in its name lies 
the conception of a race about the thing it names. 
Hence, I regret that coal is so universally called a 
“ mineral.” 
When I was a child of about eight or nine years old, 
I first heard my parents speaking of a curious incident 
of their honeymoon. They had gone into the Egyptian 
desert, and at one place the little railway train had been 
stoked with animal mummies for want of ordinary 
fuel. My childish imagination had never been stirred 
by the thought that coal could make an engine move, 
but the idea that mummies could do so seemed like 
some fairy tale of old Baghdad, and impressed me not 
only with its faint aroma of horror, but with a vivid 
revelation of the magic power of the steam within the 
boilers. 
And now my research into the structure of coal is 
bringing me back this sense of magic, for it is becoming 
clear to me that coal is mummies—the mummies of dis- 
membered plants. 
In general the remnants of extinct creatures of former 
periods of the world’s history are spoken of as “‘ fossils,’’ 
or “ petrified remains ”’; indeed, the terms “‘ fossil,” 
and “‘ petrifaction ”” are almost synonymous, for most 
of the fossils are petrified, and the plant or animal 
is represented by a simulacrum in stone. But in some 
instances the very substance of the creature is preserved 
from decay by natural chances, as were mummies by 
man’s design. This is what happened when coal was 
formed—the dismembered fragments of plants of all 
sorts were preserved together, neither petrified nor 
mineral-infiltered, but shut away from the air to form a 
